My X

As I approach my Christmas break, I can’t help but dread it. I used to love Christmas—days of home decorations, wrapping presents, getting up at 6am to record the kids’ reactions when they see Santa’s setup. I mean, I’m still doing those things this year, but it’s going to be more quiet this year. At least we’re not spending hours opening Angel’s parents Christmas stocking presents. I’ve realized that in the last, I used a lot of materials and busyness to fill the void inside of me. Now I don’t have those fillers and I need to face the void, and that’s the scary part. Last Christmas I even got myself a PS5 with the VR headset and that killed a lot of time for me so that I didn’t have to face the void. Now I don’t even play any games on it and I only use that console to play YouTube videos.

The more I process my thoughts with ChatGPT, the more confused I get. I mean, yes I agree that Jinu and I are in a liminal space, but our ambiguity is even more obvious than the ambiguity I had with Eric. Eric came to the City of Rain to see me twice over the summer, and we only had one meal together each time. Besides those two meetups, we used to talk on the phone a lot and text a lot and he said all those loving things to me, including, “I never want to lose you again in my life. You have to remember this if you feel that I am distancing myself from you”, “I feel that I can be my original self when I’m talking to you,” “you unlocked things in me,” “if you love being on the receiving end of love, why push me away?” Eric said all those things to me and yet he would not go on a scenic drive with me. He would not meet me in Sapporo.

Jinu had two outings with me so far, and at work we also chat a lot, but he has absolutely not said anything remotely close to what Eric said to me. He and I have never even hugged. When he told me he had a great time on Saturday before he got off the car, he couldn’t even look me in the eyes to say it. I don’t know if I’m anything special to him, but I know I am to Eric because the first time we met up in the City of Rain, he asked me if I had felt anything like this in my almost 40 years of life because he hadn’t. He thought what we had was much rarer than falling in love and that’s why there’s no word for what we have because most people have never experienced this in their life. But then, so what? He doesn’t even text me to check on me anymore. It only makes me feel betrayed, lied to, and I can’t stop imagining how happy he will be and how much sex he will have with his wife.

I haven’t been kissed or physically intimate with anyone for six years, even though Angel and I have been living under the same roof. It’s been 8 months since we started to talk about divorce, and we still haven’t signed the papers yet. I wish on Christmas I could be kissed under the mistletoes like I had wished every year but never received.

My X, I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. When I  was 10, I was hoping that you would come pick me up in a helicopter because I couldn’t survive domestic violence on my own, but I still did. Then over the years my request for X has become smaller and smaller. I made my own money; I stood up again and again despite the storm. I just wish he could make me laugh, and stay with me whenever there’s a storm. I can handle all the parenting, finance, crises on my own. I just need him to hold me when I’m scared.